Tag: Disabled

Posted in Book Review Tuesday

Book Review Tuesday (4/14/26) – Tune It Out

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Tuesday, bibliophiles!

Alright, let’s do this one last time.

My name is Madeline. I was diagnosed with SPD at age three, and I’ve talked about it fairly extensively on this blog, often in relation to what I usually talk about on here: books and music. Current research gives the estimate that around 1 in 20 people has some form of SPD, but it’s rarely talked about—much less depicted in pop culture. The representation of it in literature (and every other kind of media) is almost nonexistent. I’ve had the privilege of meeting more people with SPD in college, and that’s made me much less isolated and more confident. Nonetheless, the conversation around SPD tends to amount to crickets. Thankfully, progress in representation has inched forward. Last year, we got the documentary Sensory Overload, which was an excellent and intersectional window into all kinds of people with sensory issues, including SPD—I highly recommend it.

But until I read this novel, I’d only heard of one other fiction book on the subject (Carolyn Mackler’s Not If I Can Help It, which I also highly recommend), and that book only came out in 2019. So you can see why I grew up feeling more than a little alienated.

I rarely get excited to hear about books from authors I’ve never even heard of. But the minute that I found out that Tune It Out had SPD representation, I was itching to read it. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find it at the library or any bookstores for six years. So I had a little celebration when my library got a copy of it on Libby! I don’t even care that I’ve aged well past the middle grade target audience, because Tune It Out provided something for me that I’ve been searching for all my life.

Enjoy this week’s review!

Tune It Out – Jamie Sumner

As far as Lou Montgomery is concerned, she’s getting along just fine. Sure, she and her mother may be unhoused, but despite Lou’s intense aversion to crowds and loud noises, she’s been able to function, trying to get noticed by a talent scout so that her mother can finally get the big break they’ve always dreamed of. But when an incident leads to Lou being separated from her mom by CPS, she’s forced into an entirely new life—one with school, new people, and all sorts of sounds that she doesn’t like. What’s more, she finally has a name for her feelings—SPD. Lou isn’t sure if she likes it. But as Lou comes to face the facts about herself, her mother, and her new life, she realizes that finding her voice may not be as hard as she thought.

TW/CW: child neglect/abuse, ableism, panic attacks/sensory overload, car accident

Here’s the thing. I’ve gotten emotional over representation of all kinds. Seeing my experiences of being bisexual, mixed-race, and/or the general experience of being a woman have all touched me in ways that most books don’t. For SPD, it’s different. I was full on sobbing in my bed reading Tune It Out, because so few books—and any other kind of media—have addressed this part of me. I am so beyond glad that Tune It Out exists.

First, the obvious: the SPD representation! That was the entire reason I picked up Tune It Out, and I saw so much of myself in Lou. SPD is a varied diagnosis, but a lot of Lou’s symptoms were similar to mine, particularly her heightened sensitivity to sound. Her experience going to the airport for the first time, as well as the fire drill scene, really hammered home how harrowing sensory sensitivity is—every sound feels like an attack on you, and you feel that attack become pain in your body. Her aversion to touch and certain textures hit home too, especially with unwanted physical contact. Sumner’s prose made these sensations so embodied. Also, the scene where she gets an iPod for the first time and is able to use music to self-soothe truly struck me. I’ve still got my beat-up iPod nano from when I was about Lou’s age, and it serves the same purpose to this day. It’s a part of having SPD that’s always been a reliable way to help me calm down from sensory overload, and I loved that Sumner explored this in Tune It Out. I saw so much of my younger self in Lou. Sumner clearly did her homework in that regard, and I can’t thank her enough for that.

Another aspect of SPD representation that Tune It Out touches on is occupational therapy. Lou was diagnosed at an older age than I was, but the questionnaires and coping mechanisms that she learns at school were very accurate to my experience with SPD and therapy. A lot of the new challenges she faces at school, from crowded cafeterias to fire drills, were appropriately shocking to her (with the combined factor of her being formerly unhoused and not used to this particular school environment), and I loved how she learned to cope with these everyday struggles. I also appreciate that Sumner introduced the perspective of Lou having some internalized ableism; a lot of her mom’s beliefs about her “just being skittish” and that she could just “tough it out” without a problem were deeply embedded in her own belief system, which made her very reluctant to get diagnosed. Lou’s arc about realizing that SPD is nothing to be ashamed of and learning to cope with sensory issues in healthy ways resonated with me deeply, and I’m sure it will with so many other readers.

Tune It Out deals with some heavy topics, but I think it does it in a way that makes it perfect for older middle grade readers. One of the main conflicts of the book is that Lou is being controlled by her neglectful, manipulative mother; one of the main realizations that she has is that her mom has been using her singing talents to try and get them money, and she refuses to acknowledge that a) her daughter’s dreams are not her own, and b) her daughter isn’t just “skittish,” but has a disability that is not being properly accommodated. It’s definitely an older middle grade subject to realize that your parent might be emotionally abusive, but the way that Sumner handled it gave it the weight it deserves. Lou idolized her mother for so long, but she reacted exactly how I would imagine a 12-year-old would. It’s a difficult read in those portions, but I think it’s an important subject for younger readers to be exposed to.

In terms of the lighter, more classic middle school parts of the plot, Tune It Out reminded me of some of my favorite middle grade novels that I read in elementary and middle school. I loved the scenes with Lou and her new friends, especially Well, who read delightfully like a Wes Anderson character. The scenes of them bonding over music made me bawl. Lou’s fears about her new friends were relatable, but all of them coming together to support Lou taking control of her own narrative were so heartwarming. Sumner really captured that feeling of being in middle school and being fundamentally different from your classmates in a way that shook me to my core.

Ultimately, I think Lou’s arc in Tune It Out was incredibly powerful. Given that so many narratives about disability lean into “inspiration” plots, I think it’s so potent that Lou’s arc centers around her gaining autonomy over her life. She finally works up the courage to stand up to her neglectful, emotionally abusive mother—that scene was one of the most poignant in the book. But I think that the core of Lou’s arc—her life being controlled, and then her gaining control over her life—is so important for young, neurodivergent girls to hear. Honestly, it works for all kinds of young girls. When you’re neurodivergent and/or a girl, so many people will try to tell you how to live your life, and being told from a young age that you are the only one in charge of your story is something that needs to be heard and reinforced. My hope is that young girls will learn that from Lou, and I have no doubt that they will. I needed a Lou when I was 12, but I’m just glad that the generations of girls to come will have a Lou of their own.

All in all, Tune It Out was easy to love: full of heart, charm, and just the sort of representation that I’ve been searching for ever since I knew about the concept of representation. Thank you, Jamie Sumner. Representation matters. 5 stars!

Tune It Out is a standalone, but Jamie Sumner is the author of several other books for children, including Roll With It, The Summer of June, Glory Be, Please Pay Attention, and more.

Today’s song:

That’s it for this week’s Book Review Tuesday! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Posted in Books

The Bookish Mutant’s Books for Autism Acceptance Month (2026 Edition) ♾️🌈

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Monday, bibliophiles!

Here in the U.S., April is Autism Acceptance Month! Unfortunately, I’ve only done one of these recommendations lists in the past (April is usually a very busy month for me), but I figured I would make another, because like many of the other marginalized identities that the Trump administration has been going after, the autistic community, especially here in the States, has been under attack. RFK Jr. has repeatedly made claims that he will “cure autism” (as if it even needs to be cured in the first place) and has spread all sorts of harmful and baseless misinformation about autism and autistic people. What most of it boils down to is the concept that autism—and neurodivergence in general—is somehow a tragedy.

The truth is much more nuanced. While it isn’t a superpower, as some people try to sugarcoat it, autism is not a tragedy, and autistic people’s lives, experiences, and stories are worth celebrating. That’s what I hope to do with this list: here, we have narratives in many different genres about autistic people being the autonomous heroes in their own stories. And just like the experiences of autistic people, no two are completely alike—it is a spectrum, after all, and a multitude of experiences.

And because it’s evergreen (and relatable as a neurodivergent person), here’s this clip of Fern Brady on how people talk about autism:

For my list of recommendations from 2023, click here.

Also, if you’d like an opportunity to find even more books with autism rep, Ada Hoffmann (whose books I included on my last list) has compiled an exhaustive repository of them!

NOTE: most of these novels have explicit autistic representation, but some of them (The Book Eaters, A Big Ship at the Edge of the Universe, etc.) do not have autistic representation, but are written by autistic authors; I chose to include them, as this post is meant to uplift autistic authors and characters. Additionally, there are several books that aren’t directly focused on autism, but on disability in general, but still have contributions/stories from autistic authors, which I thought merited inclusion as well.

Let’s begin, shall we?

THE BOOKISH MUTANT’S BOOKS FOR AUTISM ACCEPTANCE MONTH (2026 EDITION)

SCIENCE FICTION:

FANTASY:

REALISTIC AND HISTORICAL FICTION:

NONFICTION:

TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK! Have you read any of these books, and if so, what did you think of them? What are some of your favorite books by autistic authors? Let me know in the comments!

Today’s song:

I haven’t thought about this song in ages…

That’s it for this week’s recommendations list! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Posted in Book Review Tuesday

Book Review Tuesday (2/24/26) – Every Variable of Us

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Tuesday, bibliophiles!

I’ve read a lot of great books this month, but a lot of the ones I’ve read recently are sequels to books that I haven’t reviewed, so it feels weird to review a book 2 or 3 when I haven’t even review book 1. Hence why there have been more negative reviews this month. However, I do feel like I have to get my feelings about Every Variable of Us off my chest, because it promised something so positive, but crashed in burned in so many ways. It was a sore disappointment for sure.

Enjoy this week’s review!

Every Variable of Us – Charles A. Bush

Alexis Duncan loves basketball—and she’s counting on it to get her the scholarship she needs to escape her impoverished neighborhood and turbulent home life. But when she’s injured in a shooting and can no longer play basketball, her dreams are crushed. With no other option, she turns to Aamani, the new student in her school. Aamani encourages Alexis to join their school’s STEM team to get the scholarship she needs. Alexis is skeptical—she knows nothing about the sport, and she’s reluctant to fit in with the nerdier crowd. But as her skills—and her confusing crush on Aamani—develop, Alexis realizes that there may be more to her than meets the eye.

TW/CW: racism, gun violence, homophobia, Islamophobia, xenophobia, ableism (internalized/external), drug abuse/addiction themes, mentions of child abuse

I’m a little ashamed to be giving this novel such a negative review, but I firmly believe that negative reviews have their place. This novel was clearly a labor of love for Bush, being a debut novel about a queer, Black, and disabled girl, a story that’s exceedingly difficult to get out there in this climate. There’s probably some kids out there who think that this is just the book for them. Without a doubt, Every Variable of Us is an important book to have out there. But I think there’s a lot of valid criticism to be had for this novel, and it’s important to note that a book being diverse doesn’t absolve flaws in its writing…of which this novel had many.

In theory, I think Alexis is a great character to have for a YA audience; there’s this expectation in the genre that even your characters can’t be flawed in terms of their worldview, because that might be “problematic.” It’s good for teens to see a character that starts off narrow-minded and comes out the other side more tolerant or understanding. I tried to roll with Alexis’s inner monologue with that in mind. There’s a lot that you have to put up with—in the beginning of the book, Alexis is…practically everything-phobic: Islamophobic, racist towards other minorities, fatphobic, homophobic, and ableist. There’s a clear setup for her to learn from her mistakes and be more understanding of other people’s cultures, and in turn, accept her own status as a disabled, bisexual person. However, there doesn’t end up being much development on her part, when both the novel and the marketing want us to believe that she undergoes this dramatic arc and becomes a whole new person. Alexis becomes more tolerant towards queerness and Aamani’s Indian heritage and traditions, but save for that (and her success in becoming an asset to the STEM team and getting a scholarship), her arc is practically a straight line. Her lack of self-reflection wouldn’t have been a problem if Bush wanted the reader so badly to think that she’d magically changed into a better person, when in reality, she was in a very similar place to where she was at the beginning of the novel. I’m all for flawed characters, but don’t tell me that a character’s had this monumental shift in her worldview when she really hasn’t.

Which brings me to the complicated issue of the diversity of this book. I really appreciate that Bush put a lot of effort into making Every Variable of Us have a diverse cast. However, a lot of the diverse characters ended up feeling like props to reinforce lessons for Alexis about being tolerant about other marginalized people. To be fair, Aamani had more development than the rest, but there were moments when she was clearly only there to teach Alexis about Indian people and Hindu traditions, as well as queerness. It was more blatantly evident in characters like Matthew; I appreciated the note at the beginning where Bush acknowledged that he’s not autistic and wanted to represent autism as respectfully as possible. I can’t speak to the autism rep specifically, but as a neurodivergent person, I found Matthew to be decently represented. That being said, it very much felt like he was there just so that he could challenge Alexis’s ableist worldview. At a certain point, I could see the checklist in Bush’s head: “oh, wait! Maybe we can add an Asian character here, jot that down!” Diversity can only be successful when its intent is to provide representation of minorities, but also minorities as people, not teaching moments for the main character; otherwise, it becomes disingenuous. Every Variable of Us unfortunately fell straight into this trap.

I’ve talked about this with several YA books, but there’s a very vocal camp in the YA world that’s staunchly against pop culture references in the story. I’ve never really understood the argument—why not have your characters engage with media that current teenagers like and/or that you liked as a teenager? Why not have something that a teenager can relate to or be introduced to because of this book? However, there is very much a wrong way to do it, and that’s to cram every possible reference into the narrative for no reason. Dear Wendy is another example where that approach nosedived (too many references, not enough actual story), but it pains me to say that Every Variable of Us is also a masterclass on how not to write pop culture references into the narrative. Every other sentence had a reference. Even when I was Alexis’s age, and deeply, deeply nerdy (especially about some of the same things that Aamani is passionate about, namely Marvel comics), my inner and outer monologue didn’t contain an Avengers reference every 10 seconds. It got to such a ridiculous point—nobody, not even nerdy people, talks like that at all. As a result, almost all of the characters ceased to become real to me. People just do not speak like that. It’s like Bush was trying to relate to every possible teenager by thinking of every possible thing that a teenager could like, and then translating it into dialogue, making it exceedingly hammy.

That issue of trying to relate to every possible teenager felt like the core of my issues with Every Variable of Us. It’s an issue that I often see in a lot of debut novels: authors want to cram every possible thing that they’re passionate about into a single novel; at best, it’s a labor of love, and at worst, it’s quite bloated. This novel suffered from this without a doubt. He just tried to tackle far too many issues, and as a result, the analysis of them was often surface-level. Bush talks about gang violence, abuse, having a parent with an addiction, homelessness, suddenly developing a disability, religious bigotry, and queerness all in one novel. While it’s admirable to write about this much (and there are of course people who live in these circumstances), Bush clearly didn’t have the page time to do justice to all of them without only giving an underdeveloped take on all but maybe…two or three of these issues. I do appreciate the handful of moments where the exploration of these topics actually did land; the moment at the end with Alexis’s mother was one of the only parts of the book that was emotionally impactful to me. But for the most part, this was just way too much for a single debut novel to be doing. In an attempt to try and address every issue that he seems to be outspoken about, Bush ends up hardly addressing them at all.

If there’s a lesson to be learned here, it’s that you can’t please everybody with a single novel, whether it’s the audience you’re appealing to or the groups that you’re trying to represent. Charles A. Bush just seemed too concerned with trying to make every possible reader in every parallel universe happy, which stretched the narrative thin. I get that there’s an insurmountable amount of pressure with a debut novel, but you do not need to please everybody! It’s okay! Breathe!

All in all, a debut novel that tried too hard to do too much, and ended up spiraling into a mess as a result. 1.75 stars.

Every Variable of Us is a standalone, and Charles A. Bush’s debut novel.

Today’s song:

That’s it for this week’s Book Review Tuesday! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Posted in Book Review Tuesday

Book Review Tuesday (1/13/26) – We Will Rise Again: Speculative Stories and Essays on Protest, Resistance, and Hope

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Tuesday, bibliophiles, and from the bottom of my heart, fuck ICE. Rest in power, Renee Nicole Good. My heart goes out to everybody in Minneapolis right now. ❤️‍🩹

Whoo, look at me! Actually reviewing a book not long after it came out!!

I found out about We Will Rise Again soon after it came out, and it immediately caught my eye—in fact, it seemed almost specifically engineered for me. I mean, speculative fiction based on social justice? Come on. And while the stories and essays within it varied in quality, this anthology was a worthy endeavor and a much-needed collaboration.

Enjoy this week’s review!

We Will Rise Again: Speculative Stories and Essays on Protest, Resistance, and Hope – edited by Karen Lord, Annalee Newitz, and Malka Older

(description from The Storygraph:)

From genre luminaries, esteemed organizers, and exciting new voices in fiction, an anthology of stories, essays, and interviews that offer transformative visions of the future, fantastical alternate worlds, and inspiration for the social justice movements of tomorrow.

In this collection, editors Karen Lord, Annalee Newitz, and Malka Older champion realistic, progressive social change using the speculative stories of writers across the world. Exploring topics ranging from disability justice and environmental activism to community care and collective worldbuilding, these imaginative pieces from writers such as NK Jemisin, Charlie Jane Anders, Alejandro Heredia, Sam J. Miller, Nisi Shawl, and Sabrina Vourvoulias center solidarity, empathy, hope, joy, and creativity.

Each story is grounded within a broader sociopolitical framework using essays and interviews from movement leaders, including adrienne maree brown and Walidah Imarisha, charting the future history of protest, revolutions, and resistance with the same zeal for accuracy that speculative writers normally bring to science and technology. Using the vehicle of ambitious storytelling, We Will Rise Again offers effective tools for organizing, an unflinching interrogation of the status quo, and a blueprint for prefiguring a different world.

TW/CW: violence, transphobia, themes of oppression/marginalization, ableism, murder

Somehow, it’s so on brand that Ursula Vernon would be that hardcore about gardening. I always vaguely got that vibe from her work, but her essay was not a surprise in the slightest.

There were all kinds of speculative fiction authors featured in We Will Rise Again: familiar authors I’ve liked, familiar authors I haven’t been a fan of, and unfamiliar authors entirely; in fact, all three of the authors who edited the anthology (Karen Lord, Annalee Newitz, and Malka Older) are all hit-or-miss authors for me, but I stuck to this anthology because the concept was so compelling to me. Sure enough, not only were their stories fascinating, so were everyone else’s. Some of my favorites were Charlie Jane Anders’s “Realer Than Real,” a meditation on being transgender in the U.S. and poking fun at gender roles, Abdulla Moaswes’s “Kifaah and the Gospel,” a potent commentary about Palestinian resistance and the inherent absurdity of colonialism, and Malka Older’s “Aversion,” an excellent commentary about how to get people to pay attention and care about issues without having to expose them to a barrage of triggering, disturbing imagery. (The latter isn’t deeply relevant at all, no way! No way…) Whether in sci-fi, fantasy, or loosely speculative formats, all of them came together in a vibrant quilt of different perspectives and ideas.

The nonfiction in We Will Rise Again was, for the most part, equally potent. I was so excited to see Nicola Griffith featured in here, and her essay “Rewriting the Old Disability Script” was as timely as ever; even though disability representation in media at large, not to mention literature, has gradually gotten better, this was a potent reminder of the staggering lack of representation of disability of any kind in mainstream media. I’d already read N.K. Jemisin’s “How Long ‘Til Black Future Month? The Toxins of Speculative Fiction, and the Antidote That Is Janelle Monae,” but it fit perfectly in this anthology and was well worth a re-read. The very core of We Will Rise Again was that the fiction stories had tangible input from activists with real-world experience; without this, I still would’ve liked these stories, but with this added layer, they strangely gave me more hope. The faith of real-world activists embedded in fiction emphasizes what this anthology was really about, for me: educated, grounded hope for a better future.

However, with an anthology that cast such a wide net idea-wise, there’s bound to be some misses. I think the biggest issue with We Will Rise Again was that it verged on being too broad. Naturally, when you’re talking about social justice, there are so many things that you can talk about, and this anthology discusses the whole gamut of them in both fiction and nonfiction, from community care to transphobia to disability rights. For the most part, I could see the common thread through all of them easily. Some of them, however, bordered on being very loosely strung together; for instance, although I loved Vernon’s essay “The Quiet Heroics of Gardening,” the connection between it and the other stories was very, very loose. I think the issue was that not all of the fiction stories had nonfiction paired with them—the format they had with most of these stories could’ve cohesively been applied to all of them and given the anthology a better, more reasonable structure.

Overall, there weren’t any stories that I didn’t like, which is a rare thing in any given collaborate short story anthology. However, I did have a structural issue with some of them. Speculative fiction is a notoriously broad term, and I think some of the stories in this collection took that a little too seriously. While some of them were clearly sci-fi, fantasy, or at least had some speculation and change to the world, some of them barely felt speculative. For instance, if you took away the fleeting fantastical element of Vida James’s “Chupacabras,” I would’ve thought that it was only set a few years after the present—there wasn’t a ton that was new about it, and said fantastical element felt like an afterthought. (I had a similar issue with Sabrina Vourvoulias’s “Persefoni in the City.”) Even with some of the “this is only meant to be a few years from now” stories, I got that what was speculative was the politics (ex. with Izzy Wasserstein’s “The Rise and Fall of Storm Bluff, Kansas”), but with the ones I mentioned, hardly anything had changed. While I get that the focus wasn’t necessarily on the worldbuilding, with the anthology’s whole point being on genre/speculative fiction as a way of collective imagination and imagining better worlds, stories like those felt at odds with the intended message. “Speculative” was a bit generous of a term for some of those stories.

All in all, a diverse and hopeful anthology, both in terms of its contributors and its subject matter, all coming together to make powerful statements about how to survive in this landscape and dream of something better. 3.75 stars!

We Will Rise Again is a standalone anthology; Karen Lord is also the author of the Cygnus Beta series (The Best of All Possible Worlds, The Galaxy Game, and The Blue and Beautiful World). Annalee Newitz is also the author of The Terraformers, Autonomous, Automatic Noodle, and The Future of Another Timeline. Malka Older is also the author of The Investigations of Mossa and Pleiti series (The Mimicking of Known Successes, The Imposition of Unnecessary Obstacles, and The Potency of Ungovernable Impulses) and the Centenal Cycle (Infomocracy, Null States, and State Tectonics).

Today’s song:

LODGER 🙌

That’s it for this week’s Book Review Tuesday! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Posted in Book Review Tuesday

Book Review Tuesday (10/21/25) – Failure to Communicate

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Tuesday, bibliophiles!

I found out about this book earlier this year while looking for more sci-fi with queer and/or disabled rep (as I always am). This book seemed to have nearly the perfect premise—I just can’t get over how genius it is to have an autistic protagonist who’s had to study human behavior her whole life study alien behavior as well in order to initiate First Contact. I ended up buying it for Bookshop.org’s recent Anti-Prime Sale, and I ate it up in a handful of days. Though not without its flaws, Failure to Communicate delivers almost completely on its remarkable premise, full of political intrigue, aliens, and heart.

Enjoy this week’s review!

Failure to Communicate (Xandri Corelel, #1) – Kaia Sønderby

Xandri Corelel has spent her life studying everyone around her, be they people or aliens. She’s been forced to, after centuries of eugenics has made her one of the few autistic humans left in the universe. She uses these skills as a Xeno-Liaison, negotiating with all sorts of aliens on behalf of the Starsystems Alliance. But when presented with a potentially hostile species possessing one of the most powerful weapons in the universe, Xandri faces the most difficult negotiation of her career—one that may chance the face of interspecies relations forever.

TW/CW: ableism, xenophobia (fictional), violence, blood, genocide themes, slavery, animal death

“Autistic person spends entire life trying to understand human behavior, doesn’t fully understand it, then spends her entire career understanding alien behavior instead” has to win the gold medal for the best sci-fi premise I’ve heard in years. (Also, felt.) And though not all of it delivered on said premise, Failure to Communicate is a hidden gem for sure.

Now, I’m reviewing a space opera book which features a whole host of alien species, which means it’s time for my obligatory creature design rant. The aliens in Failure to Communicate are…a complicated case, for sure. The majority of them are basically larger, intelligent versions of real-world animals (with some brief exceptions), but Sønderby is self-aware of the fact; for instance, the Psittacans (a name that Xandri gave the species and didn’t develop on its own, thankfully) basically look like giant parrots, but Xandri explains that in-universe, all of their parrot-like features aren’t anything like what we would call, say, feathers, but evolved in such a way that they looked exactly like Earth parrots independently of Earth. This same explanation is given to pretty much all of the other species in the book, which is a bit too convenient to apply to 90% of the aliens in the novel. As for the Anmerilli, though I’m not disparaging the cover artist in any way, I feel like the cover didn’t do justice to their more alien features—and man, was I relieved that these aliens weren’t just humans with extra steps. Well…if you boiled it down, they kind of were, but there were enough traits that they at least got to the level of a decently compelling Star Wars humanoid. (Also, Sønderby’s descriptions of the Zechak also made me picture them as genocidal Piglins, which was…uh, interesting, for sure.)

But what almost made up with that for me was the in-depth explanations of their respective cultures. In the end, Failure to Communicate wasn’t necessarily a book about biology—it was a book about politics, anthropology, culture, and communication. That, at least, was incredibly fleshed out and much more thoroughly thought-out—as it should’ve been. Dissecting some of the alien cultures was one of the best parts of the novel. These cultures and the conflicts between them formed the backbone of the novel. Though until the end, Failure to Communicate is somewhat light on action, Xandri’s experiences with navigating the intricacies of dozens of alien cultures was nothing short of compelling—Sønderby has the mind of an anthropologist, and there was truly no stone left unturned. I loved that she didn’t shy away from depicting the discomfort that comes with interacting with other cultures for the first time and having one’s own values brush up against theirs—it’s bound to happen with First Contact, and it’s bound to happen in a lot of novel, multicultural interactions. There were some places where I felt there needed to be more nuance (ex. the whole situation with the Zechak; yes, they’re genocidal, but it verged too close to “this entire species consists of genocidal, cold-blooded killers,” which Xandri tries to self-correct, but isn’t emphasized enough. I’d find that hard to believe), but overall, I loved Sønderby’s cultural explorations.

Sønderby’s commitment to not shying away from discomfort was one of the best parts of the novel, and that was made manifest in her main character, Xandri. There was a ton about her that I loved—her keen eye for cultural quirks, her inner monologues about the idiosyncrasies of the neurodivergent world, and her unflappable sense of justice. However, she was far from a perfect character—even being in a world populated with aliens, she harbored her own unconscious biases and prejudices, which she frequently had to come to terms with throughout her mission. She lashed out, she made rash decisions—she was imperfect. And though she was easy to root for, she had plenty of flaws, a balance that is difficult for any author to strike.

Failure to Communicate isn’t an action-heavy book, which I’m all for—waiter! More cozy sci-fi, please! However, I hesitate to call this novel “cozy,” especially considering the moment when shit hits the fan during the last third of it. Everything that happens then swiftly merits the “cozy” title being unceremoniously ripped off. Nonetheless, Sønderby takes some cues from cozy sci-fi’s best; I loved how she let the plot meander in the more interpersonal conflicts as opposed to the big and showy ones, and let the often messy character dynamics take the lead. The ending was also messy and bittersweet, but not in a way that lacks resolution—it is a resolution, just a very complicated one with quite a lot of uncomfortable implications for Xandri. Another example of Sønderby not shying away from making things complex. I do like that it ended on a very hopeful note, as much of a wreck as some things ended up being.

Being neurodivergent, the subject of disability was part of what drew me into Failure to Communicate. I’ve mentioned on here that I have SPD, which shares some similarities with autism, and I related to Xandri’s lifelong mission to study and understand the neurotypical people around her in order to try and piece together how their world worked. She deals with a hefty dose of ableism (both from well-intentioned and malicious people) throughout the book, which was quite rough, but I loved that she never compromised her pride in being autistic. Sønderby takes the trope of futuristic societies erasing disability as a sign of progress to task, which amplifies Xandri’s struggles as an autistic woman into the struggles of possibly being the only autistic person in the entire galaxy. Which…yeah. The ableism is inevitable at that point. The only disability aspect that I’m not so sure about was having the twist that Marco was also disabled (specifically, he has bipolar disorder); I do appreciate that Sønderby uses it as an opportunity to show that almost identical conditions can produce a hero as well as a villain and that the pressures of ableism drove him to betray the team, but I really don’t think the latter had enough nuance to it. Not that disabled characters can’t be evil, obviously, but it felt too much like making a mentally ill character automatically a villain simply because they’re mentally ill. I’m willing to give Sønderby the benefit of the doubt because she handled all of the other disability-related topics so wonderfully, but it still didn’t sit completely right with me.

Also, I just have to mention that this book is so, so queer. BLESS. First off, I loved that Xandri was bisexual, but I appreciated that she was polyamorous too—there’s hardly any depictions of polyamory out there that don’t make their characters the butt of a joke or a fetish, so this was a breath of fresh air, for sure.

All in all, a wholly unique space opera about communication, culture, and collision. 4 stars!

Failure to Communicate is the first novel in the Xandri Corelel series, followed by Tone of Voice and preceded by Testing Pandora, a prequel novella. Kaia Sønderby is also the author of the YA fantasy novel Damsel to the Rescue.

Today’s song:

That’s it for this week’s Book Review Tuesday! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Posted in Uncategorized

Book Review Tuesday (7/12/25) – Can’t Spell Treason Without Tea

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Tuesday, bibliophiles!

Continuing with my reviews for Disability Pride Month, here’s a sweet cozy fantasy with queer, disabled leads! Of course, those three factors are what drew me in, and I was in the mood for something more low-stakes. Though it wasn’t the best cozy fantasy out there, Can’t Spell Treason Without Tea was a sweet diversion.

Enjoy this week’s review!

Can’t Spell Treason Without Tea (Tomes & Tea, #1) – Rebecca Thorne

All Reyna and Kianthe want to do is escape. Kianthe is tethered to her job as the most powerful mage in the Queendom, and Reyna works as one of the Queen’s most esteemed bodyguards. But against all odds, they run away together to live out their shared dream: opening a bookshop that serves tea. As their dream falls into place, they discover that it’s not as easy as they thought to abandon their lives and run away, from the guards searching for Reyna and the complications of Kianthe’s magic. But they’re determined to make their dreams come true, and they’ll stop at nothing to have a moment of peace.

TW/CW: fire, injury, loss of loved ones, murder, violence, panic attacks

If you can get past the initially corny title, there’s some comfort to be had here, just like a good cup of relaxing tea. Am I committed to sticking around for the even punnier titles in the rest of the series? Not really, if I’m being honest. That said, if you’re looking for something fluffy, romantic, and sweet, Can’t Spell Treason Without Tea is the perfect diversion for you.

As far as coziness goes, Can’t Spell Treason Without Tea was a solid entry into the genre! Although it’s more action-oriented than a typical cozy fantasy novel, the pacing works in such a way that it takes a backseat to the more quiet, gentle parts of the novel. Thorne’s way of describing the mountainous landscape and the interior of the bookshop was relaxing and cozy; if it hadn’t been July when I read this, it would’ve been the perfect book to read while swaddled in blankets during the winter. It’s hard to get a reader invested in a relationship that’s already been going strong for at least a few years, but those quiet moments were perfect to get acquainted with Reyna and Kianthe. There’s plentiful soft, tender moments between the couple, both when they’re enjoying spending time together and when they’re trying to work out issues—often related to hurdles with getting the bookshop to work, but usually with something more interpersonal at its heart. If you can already get past the corny title, chances are, you’ll get past some of the more corny book and tea-related puns—for the most part, it’s a very silly, fluffy book, and it 100% fulfills its purpose as such. And damn, I needed a fluffy book.

Though this isn’t the best cozy genre fiction I’ve ever read, I think Thorne’s writing style lends itself perfectly to the subgenre. She had a very soothing way of describing the world and the characters—every description felt very bucolic and gentle, making even the world seem comforting alongside the storyline. With this style, she was able to render the quiet, tender moments of relationship development between Reyna and Kianthe beautifully, whether it was working out disagreements in their visions of the bookshop or helping the other work through panic attacks. Her writing just has a calming quality that not many writers do—an essential tool when you’re writing cozy fiction. Thorne’s passion for her characters and world truly shone through in every word, and it was clear that they took great care in making their writing as true to the intended mood as possible.

A rotating cast of characters is going to be a staple if your novel centers around a bookshop that serves tea, but that isn’t even where this novel’s character problem arises: it’s how they’re introduced. The issue with having Can’t Spell Treason Without Tea being placed smack dab in the middle of an established relationship is that many of the other characters are established as being involved with them, but you’re barely offered an explanation as to why. It seems like there’s quite a lot of short stories and one-shots and whatnot surrounding the novel, but without that context, it was rather disorienting juggling all of the characters when the protagonists had established relationships with them and their roles were hardly ever fully explained. Combine that with the fact that there were so many of these characters, and you’ve got a bit of a mess as far as getting the reader to care about anyone besides the protagonists.

Now, about the worldbuilding…or, “go, girl, give us nothing!” The worldbuilding wasn’t the main draw for me when I picked up Can’t Spell Treason Without Tea, but even then, it was rather underwhelming. Generically European and vaguely medieval high fantasy setting strikes again…free me from this prison!! I get that the romance and the characterization was the more central aspect to the book, but I still think that Thorne could’ve done much more with her worldbuilding. Try as I might, there wasn’t anything new offered about the setting. Though the descriptions of said setting were soothingly written, I struggled to find anything that stood out about the world—not even the magic system or the creatures. The monarchy and mythical creatures (griffins, dragons, etc.) were standard fare, but even those didn’t have any small quirks that would distinguish them from any other fantasy novel. If I think of what drew me in to this book, my mind goes to it being cozy and having queer/disabled leads; though I loved these aspects and think they were done wonderfully, they don’t strike me as necessarily unique—I’ve read other books with these exact qualities that had original worldbuilding to back them up. I’m not saying that this book had to have some insanely convoluted worldbuilding or anything, but at least give us something!

All in all, a cozy fantasy that was sweet enough to tide me over, but could’ve done with something more to distinguish it from all the rest. 3.5 stars!

Can’t Spell Treason Without Tea is the first novel in the Tomes & Tea series, which continues with A Pirate’s Life for Tea, Tea You at the Altar, and the final book, Alchemy and a Cup of Tea, which is slated for release in August of 2025. Rebecca Thorne is also the author of This Gilded Abyss and The Day Death Stopped.

Today’s song:

saw car seat headrest on saturday night…you will most DEFINITELY be hearing about that soon!!

That’s it for this week’s Book Review Tuesday! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Posted in Book Review Tuesday

Book Review Tuesday (7/8/25) – Something More

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Tuesday, bibliophiles!

I’ve been looking around for books to read for Disability Pride Month, and in general, trying to find some books by Palestinian/Palestinian diaspora authors. Something More fit both of those, so I figured I would give it a go! Though it wasn’t a perfect novel, it had all of the qualities of a classic YA romance novel—angsty, romantic, and heartfelt writing.

Enjoy this week’s review!

Something More – Jackie Khalilieh

Jessie is determined to turn over a new leaf. On the precipice of starting high school, she wants to show the world that she isn’t the girl who she was in middle school—lonely, awkward, and more importantly, autistic. Keeping her diagnosis a secret, Jessie quickly makes new friends—and new crushes—at Holy Trinity High. But when her friendships begin to unravel and her relationships start to crumble, Jessie questions whether it’s worth it to keep her authentic truth a secret after all.

TW/CW: ableism (external & internalized), xenophobia, racism, substance abuse, bullying

Dude. Jessie and I would’ve been best friends in high school. I would’ve gladly welcomed another neurodivergent Radiohead girlie to go sneak off to the library with during my lunch period.

Though I can’t speak to the accuracy of the representation, I loved how Something More explored Jessie’s identity! It’s something that I assume has a lot of personal importance to the author, and Khalilieh’s explored all of the facets of Jessie’s identity with such sensitivity and love. I’m not autistic, but I am neurodivergent (I have SPD), and I deeply resonated with a lot of her struggles with fitting in and adjusting to high school while being neurodivergent. I loved the arc of Jessie realizing that there’s no reason to hide her autism from her friends, and I also appreciated that a lot of her friends, despite their flaws, were respectful and accepting of her identity. The same goes with her Palestinian-Canadian identity—again, I can’t speak to the representation, but Something More had such a lovely exploration of Jessie’s experience growing up in an immigrant household and feeling like an outsider because of her Palestinian roots. It’s a deeply refreshing intersection of representation in YA literature that I adored!

I normally don’t advocate for things becoming Netflix movies, but I swear that Something More has the perfect recipe for becoming that kind of YA classic that gets a cute streaming movie. I can already see the Clueless-esque ’90s soundtrack from here, tailored towards Jessie’s special interest and the music integrated in the novel. From Jessie’s diary full of friend and boy-related (and getting her parents to get her a phone-related) goals to Jessie’s unique spark as a protagonist, it’s got the classic tropes down to a science, yet never makes them feel tired. She injects the right amounts of both the sass and the vulnerability that comes with a lovable YA rom-com protagonist. Khalilieh perfectly captures the awkwardness of entering high school and the rocky path to fitting in and finding your place. Jessie has so much great development, from realizing her self-worth in the face of her crush being dismissive of her, to realizing that she needs to stand up to her toxic “friends.” Jackie Khalilieh has clearly done her homework on YA, and with a little refinement, is well on her way to making a classic.

Despite what I loved about it, Something More suffered from a few key flaws. The most glaring of them was that…oh my god, there were so many wild, random subplots and side tangents that didn’t contribute much to the plot. Jessie’s grandma, who was almost never mentioned, randomly dies towards the end of the book, one of her friends gets involved with a creepy older man and gets dumped in a parking lot, and the rest of the friend group continuously gets tossed between several skeevy guys, seemingly with no resolution. Yeah, high school is weird, but by the end of the novel, the relationship/ex statuses between Jessie and her friend group looked like that one panel in Diary of a Wimpy Kid with the massive relationship diagram. And that’s just her friend group of FOUR PEOPLE. It was wild. Other than the gross Mel subplot, which…at the very least, I guess it gave some depth to Jessie and Levi’s relationship, none of them added to the plot, and nor did they have any ripple effects throughout the novel. I guess there was only so much time for Jessie to reflect on her grandmother dying, but if they were as close as we were blatantly told in a handful of sentences, why did it barely have an effect on Jessie? Wouldn’t she be…y’know, experiencing some form of grief? It all just felt rushed and took away page time that could’ve been used to develop the more central relationships in the novel.

Speaking of relationships…thankfully, as the cover might lead you to believe, there really isn’t much of a love triangle. (Cue a sigh of relief.) I guess you could technically make an argument for it, but honestly, up until the 80% mark, I fully thought that things between Jessie and Griffin were going to stay completely platonic. Yet even then, Levi would’ve been the worse choice…LEVI. What a piece of work! I know that Jessie had to learn, BUT GIRL! YOU CAN DO BETTER THAN HIM! Just because he’s vaguely nice and looks like Kurt Cobain doesn’t mean that he’s not a flaky, disrespectful asshole! I get that Jessie had to learn both her lesson and her self-worth when it comes to falling head-over-heels for guys, but I feel like the writing of their relationship needed some work. I feel like the time between them meeting and having their first kiss was way too fast, even if Jessie was infatuated; their dynamic over the rest of the novel felt repetitive, and it didn’t serve much to the novel save for building the case for Levi being insufferable. As for Griffin, I did like their relationship, but I honestly think it could’ve worked romantically or platonically—I did like them getting together at the end, but I also would’ve appreciated him being part of Jessie’s (abandoned) goal of getting a guy friend and having a healthy depiction of friendships of the opposite gender.

Overall, a diverse YA romance that nails all of the factors for a classic formula, but faltered in its overabundance of subplots and awkwardly-paced relationships. 3.5 stars!

Something More is a standalone and Jackie Khalilieh’s debut novel. Khalilieh is also the author of You Started It and the forthcoming Everything Comes Back to You, which is set for release in 2026.

Today’s song:

I love this song, it sounds like being in a goldfish bowl…

That’s it for this week’s Book Review Tuesday! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourself!

Posted in Books

♿️ The Bookish Mutant’s Books for Disability Pride Month (2025 Edition) ♿️

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Wednesday, bibliophiles!

Here in the U.S., July is Disability Pride Month! This July, we find ourselves in a situation that’s far from celebratory. Both the U.S. and the U.K. are on the verge of passing legislation that would make cuts to the healthcare programs and benefits that many disabled people rely on. It’s clearer than ever that the people in power see disabled people as disposable and not deserving of respect. In the years since I’ve started making these posts, visibility for disabled people (and this pride month) has seen a small increase (in my experience) yet continues to be left behind in feminism. And I’m still on the hunt for any kind of media that accurately represents my own disability (sensory processing disorder), and I know many disabled people have had similar experiences. But that’s no reason to give up. It’s no reason to stop writing, to stop reading, and to stop listening to the lived experiences of disabled people. We cannot be erased with legislation—we will always be here, and we’re sticking around no matter what.

So here is another list of some of the best books with disabled representation that I’ve read in the past year! I’ve included books from all age ranges (middle grade to adult) and genres that represent a multitude of disabilities.

NOTE: my memory (and the internet) is imperfect, so if I’ve misrepresented/mislabeled any of the specific rep in these books, don’t hesitate to let me know!

KEY FOR TERMS IN THIS POST:

  • MC: Main character
  • LI: Love interest
  • SC: Side character

For my previous lists, click below: 

Let’s begin, shall we?

♿️THE BOOKISH MUTANT’S BOOKS FOR DISABILITY PRIDE MONTH (2024 EDITION)♿️

FANTASY:

SCIENCE FICTION:

*I’ve arbitrarily included Being Ace in the science fiction section, but it includes several genres, many of which fall under sci-fi/fantasy. It could theoretically go in all three fiction categories in this post.

REALISTIC FICTION:

NONFICTION (or “Oops! All Alice Wong”):

TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK! Have you read any of these books, and if so, did you enjoy them? What are some of your favorite books with disability rep? Let me know in the comments!

Today’s song:

That’s it for this recommendations list! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Posted in Book Review Tuesday

Book Review Tuesday (6/24/25) – Life Hacks for a Little Alien

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Tuesday, bibliophiles! I’m back from my road trip with a fantastic book for you.

I try to stick to mostly queer books for June, but I read extra queerly all year…think of this as pregaming for Disability Pride Month. (Both apply to me, I get a pass, right? Hell, it’s my blog and I’ll do what I like.) Nevertheless, I bought Life Hacks for a Little Alien while on vacation (shoutout to Townie Books in Crested Butte). I’d heard great reviews of it, particularly that it encapsulated neurodivergent childhood beautifully, so of course I had to read it. What I found was a heartstring-pulling and tender depiction of neurodivergent childhood.

Enjoy this week’s review!

Life Hacks for a Little Alien – Alice Franklin

In England, a young girl grows up not knowing that she’s neurodivergent, but certain that she’s different from the other children. She doesn’t talk or think the way they do, and her parents are having trouble keeping up with her. She never shows any interest in much anything, but when insomnia prompts her to watch TV at night, she discovers a documentary on the Voynich Manuscript. Soon, the mysterious manuscript heightens her curiosity and invigorates her life. The only thing that would make it better is to find the Manuscript itself—and she’s determined to get it in her hands and decipher its impossible code.

TW/CW: ableism, vomit, bullying, institutionalization/mental illness themes

I have once again been ensnared by a book with metaphors about aliens relating to neurodivergent. It will happen again.

I’ll absolutely be reading more by Alice Franklin after this, because her writing style captivated me from the start! The first comparison that sprang to mind, strangely, was of Wes Anderson. It feels odd to jump from literature to film, but stay with me. The narrator’s voice is very matter-of-fact and particular, which are qualities than can be ascribed to both very self-assured children and comically self-assured Wes Anderson characters. The linguistic footnotes and reading lists at the end of each chapter were also reminiscent of the wry judgements of Anderson’s omniscient narrators. All of this is to say that Life Hacks for a Little Alien boasted such a charming voice. Second person POV is a notoriously difficult POV to write from; Franklin chose it for the book because she found it personally easier to write and thought that it would help the reader have empathy for the protagonist. I think it would’ve been easy to have empathy for the narrator no matter what, but the use of the second person gave Life Hacks for a Little Alien such a unique flavor. As the narrator tried to pick apart the structures of how a young English girl is supposed to act, she was methodical, but in a way that was always witty, snarky, or charming. Yet that voice, when faced with the harsher realities of neurodivergent life, never faltered in its emotional connection. I was invested in the narrator’s story from the start, and from then on, Franklin kept me hooked!

Although I’m not autistic, I am neurodivergent (I have sensory processing disorder, which has some similarities to autism), and there are so many aspects of Life Hacks for a Little Alien that resonated with me. Even if I weren’t so interested in sci-fi, the latent, never-ending feeling that you’re from another planet never fades, and the latent alienation that exists in everyday life was depicted with such authenticity and heart. Beyond that, what was depicted most accurately to me was the lingering sense of “I’m doing what the other kids are doing, so why am I wrong/why are they laughing at me/what about what I did makes it wrong?” Neurotypical society is so full of idiosyncrasies, and being neurodivergent makes you realize that from an uncomfortably young age. The narrator’s struggles with picking it apart were delivered with such sensitivity and accuracy, and I loved that her special interest in linguistics and the Voynich Manuscript was not just something that made her fall in love with learning again, but also became a survival mechanism for her to navigate a complicated world.

Beyond that, the use of the Voynich Manuscript and linguistics as a metaphor for the narrator’s experience was easily the most poignant part of a very poignant novel. Many neurodivergent people of various diagnoses often express the feeling that they were never given the same “script” as neurotypical people, a feeling I’ve often shared; if anything, we were basically given a kind of indecipherable Voynich Manuscript that the author understands perfectly, but nobody else does. The narrator’s theory by the end of the novel is that it functions as a way to help aliens navigate Earth, but what is unspoken is that she sees it as such too—she feels like the alien that has been given an indecipherable code with strange pictures in order to understand a completely foreign world. You can see how that hit me in the gut instantly…and it goes even further. English linguistics are full of similar idiosyncrasies as the neurotypical world, and you’re expected to go along with them all the same, even though they frequent contradict all manner of rules. The narrator’s interest in linguistics becomes her way of understanding—or failing to understand—the world. It’s such a beautiful, multilayered metaphor, and it struck such a resonant chord within me.

I have almost no criticisms of Life Hacks for a Little Alien, and I might’ve given it 4.75 or 5 stars if not for this one aspect. My only real problem with Life Hacks for a Little Alien is that it just…ended. Although the epilogue wrapped things up in a more satisfactory and clean manner, the real ending just…ended. For such a meticulous book, it was jarring to end in such an abrupt place. Even though we got some sort of resolution, Life Hacks for a Little Alien seemed to just plunk itself down and end unceremoniously. I’m fine with some books having neatly wrapped-up endings, but this novel seemed to need some semblance of one. I fully expected another chapter afterwards. However, I can sort of see how it might function—this isn’t necessarily the end of the narrator’s story, and her life was far from over by this point. Yet it felt like the end of this arc and the beginning of a new chapter in her life, which seems to necessitate some more closure.

All in all, a deeply poignant and beautiful meditation on neurodivergent girlhood and navigating alien worlds. 4.5 stars!

Life Hacks for a Little Alien is a standalone and Alice Franklin’s debut novel.

Today’s song:

there we go, here’s something for pride!

That’s it for this week’s Book Review Tuesday! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Posted in Book Review Tuesday

Book Review Tuesday (4/15/25) – Afrotistic

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Tuesday, bibliophiles!

April is Autism Acceptance Month, and although I probably won’t have time to make a whole post about it (blame finals), I figured I would review a book with an autistic protagonist and an autistic author! This one’s been on my TBR for a few years, but I was only able to find a copy more recently. Although it wasn’t perfect, it’s a great book to introduce a younger audience to autistic issues, especially from a more diverse perspective.

Enjoy this week’s review!

Afrotistic – Kala Allen Omeiza

15-year-old Noa Ohunene Jenkins doesn’t know where she fits in—or if she can fit in at all. All of her life, she’s never felt Black enough or autistic enough. And now that she’s moving to a new high school, she doesn’t know if she’ll fit into either communities—much less her new school. Noa has her mind set on one thing: a place in the Dean’s Merit Society. The problem is, the only way she’ll get in is if she has leadership experience. Scrambling for answers, she decides to gather up fellow autistic teenagers and forms a group to discuss autistic issues. But will it be enough to show her peers and teachers that she’s just as worthy of praise?

TW/CW: ableism, racism, bullying, mentions of suicide (past), brief mentions of police brutality (in reference to police violence towards autistic people)

Afrotistic has been languishing on my TBR for way too long, but even though it wasn’t a perfect book, I think it’s a great book to introduce people—especially kids and young adults—to autism, ableism, and the intersection of race and disability! It’s already difficult to find neurodivergent representation in literature, but rarer within that category is autistic people of color—for that alone, Afrotistic is such an important book.

For some reason, I misremembered Afrotistic as being middle grade. Who knows why. I kept that assumption going in, and then I of course found out that Noa is 15 years old and a sophomore in high school. Whoops. That being said, going in with that mindset wasn’t all that bad, because I really feel like Afrotistic hits that sweet spot between middle grade and YA that’s so often unexplored. It appeals to a mid-teens age range because of its protagonist, but the writing is accessible enough that I feel like kids as young as 12 or 13 could comfortably read and relate to Noa and the other characters. (The fact that 12-18 is such a huge range of maturity for a single age group is whole can of worms, so I’ll save it for another time.) There are some more mature and sensitive topics that are briefly discussed (police brutality against autistic people of color, for one), but it’s brief enough that I feel like that age range could process and learn from it. Neurodivergent representation is hard to find in books aimed at all ages, and I feel Omeiza’s accessible writing style, as well as the relatability of Noa as a protagonist, makes for a book that could teach tons of pre-teens and young adults alike about Black and autistic identity.

Another reason I’m glad that Afrotistic exists is because of the intersectionality! The primary focus is on Noa’s identity as a young, Black, autistic girl, and how she’s struggled to make her voice heard because of how little attention is paid to neurodivergent (and disabled in general) people of color. Both through the essay excerpts in the story and through her real-time experiences not being believed by her peers and teachers, it was a poignant narrative about how neurodivergent people of color have to fight even harder to have their needs met and understood. Going off of that, I appreciated that within the Roaring Pebbles, there was a lot of intersectionality as well; as well as all of them being autistic, there was a mixed-race character with cerebral palsy, as well as men and women being present.

That being said, I wasn’t as charmed by the characters as the characters themselves seemed to be. I loved Noa and was rooting for her throughout the story, but I found myself less compelled by some of the other characters. It was clear that the friendship between Noa and Brayden was supposed to be one of the core friendships in the novel, but I really didn’t feel any kind of friendship chemistry between them. All Brayden seemed to do was make jokes that didn’t land and make awfully pushy remarks to Noa joining his youth group. I get that Noa is also Christian and doesn’t necessarily mind, but I feel like even if I was also Christian and I had somebody trying to get me to join their youth group that persistently, I’d snap. The issue with most of the other characters is that they were rather underdeveloped; this was inevitable with the amount of characters that were focused on in the Roaring Pebbles, but even the ones that had more page time were boiled down to one or two traits at most. I get that it’s difficult to juggle that many characters, but even the ones that were relatively more in the spotlight weren’t given enough traits to make them stand out. Going back to the whole pushy youth group thing with Brayden, I found it hard to believe that every single member of the Roaring Pebbles were completely fine with their group being filtered through said youth group and having a name with biblical inspiration. I get that if you’re strapped for resources, any venue you can have to gather is essential, but I would imagine that at least one of these characters isn’t Christian…

Additionally, what also soured me to some of these characters was the random side plots that weighed the story down. There’s a whole, completely unnecessary thread of two of the boys in Roaring Pebbles fighting over a girl that gets entirely too much page time and only served to derail the plot. About half of the conflicts that occur throughout Afrotistic felt of this nature—some of them were natural (like the inevitable issue that some of the autistic people have different triggers, which was something I appreciated being included and discussed), but others felt like filler. Here’s the issue: Afrotistic is only about 250 pages (on my Kindle edition), so there could have been so many more opportunities to discuss more aspects of Noa’s friendships, identity, or even her home life. Instead, we got problems that were solved far too quickly and didn’t contribute anything to the plot.

Also: I’m not completely sure how to feel about this, but I had to mention it. At some point, when Noa is surveying the different cliques in the lunchroom, she labels two of them the “woke kids” and the “cool woke kids.” It was…odd, to say the least? I can kind of see it as being a factor of her not feeling autistic/Black enough for those crowds, but I’ve never once heard cliques described as “woke” unless it’s some weird, insecure conservative person. I guess I’m so used to seeing “woke” being lobbed at anything vaguely liberal (or considerate of basic human decency) these days, but Afrotistic was published in 2022, and the same was true then. I’m just not sure how I feel about that.

All in all, a timely novel that deftly highlights the issues that autistic people of color face, but stumbled in terms of its characters and frequent plot digressions. 3.5 stars!

Afrotistic is a standalone novel, but Kala Allen Omeiza is also the author of Autistic and Black: Our Experiences of Growth, Progress, and Empowerment, and The Worst Saturday Ever.

Today’s song:

SO glad I found this song!! Brian Eno never gets old

That’s it for this week’s Book Review Tuesday! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!